Fan Opinion: Demian Maia vs Anderson Silva fight breakdown

The 34 year old Brazilian fighter Anderson Silva is 6ft2in and weighs in at 185lb with a reach of 77.6in. He holds a record of 25-4 (15 by ko, 4 by sub) and holds a black belt in TKD, Judo, BJJ and a yellow rope in Capoeira. Silva fights out of the southpaw stance.

The challenger for the title is fellow Brazilian Demian Maia who is 6ft1in and weighs in at 185lb with a reach of 72.0in.He holds a record of 12-1 (2 by ko,8 by sub) with his only loss by a KO against Nate ‘The Great’ Marquardt. Maia holds a 2nd degree black belt in BJJ. Maia also fights in a southpaw stance.

Now my fight breakdowns are my prediction as to how I think the matches will go based on each fighter’s training history, Records (example; KO or sub victories or losses and how many fights) and on how the styles may contrast. Please don’t go betting the mortgage on what I write but feel free to comment or tweet me as I will only be posting these articles on Lowkick.com.

So its time for the game plans. I feel that Silva is going to be more comfortable on the feet; his record shows that he is a solid striker with over half his fights ending by knockout. Although if the fight does go to the ground we know he has BJJ to rely on. We were shown how superior his stand up skills were in his last MMA fight against Forrest Griffin,at UFC 101,where we saw Anderson avoiding being hit with amazing head movement and finishing the fight in the first round with precise and devastating striking which saw Griffin become ‘The Spider’s 15th KO victim.

How I feel the styles will contrast is that, Maia being a grappler and submissions expert, and silva being a striking pro, we will see a rangy fight from Silva. Long stiff jabs and straight rights, to try to block Maia’s takedown at clinch attempts.

So on to the challenger Demian Maia. He is an established submission fighter with over half of his victories coming by chokes or locks. He is less experienced than Silva with only 13 fights to Silva’s 29 but he has beaten some of the best in the UFC, Including Chael Sonnen, Ryan Jensen, Ed Hermen, Jason Mcdonald and Nate Quarry all by submission. So we know that he will want this fight on the ground. Also in a recent fight at UFC 102 he was dispatched by a brutal KO punch by Nate Marquardt in round 3 of their fight.

So my prediction for the fight;

I feel that Maia will try greatly to improve his striking offense and defense but will not attempt to stand throughout the fight, only to be able to strike and defend effectively when he must. I think Anderson will be as sharp as ever, landing solid jabs and right hands as Maia tries to pick holes in his game and work for the opening, while not giving too much for the Counter striker Silva to work with. At some point in the early rounds I think Silva will check Maia’s chin and if its not up to the test we know Anderson can finish fighters no problem. If Maia can work out how to get around the striking then we may see a ground battle in which I think Maia with his solid BJJ and submission background may have the advantage. As far as the finish, I think that Anderson being more experienced and deadly in the stand up will finish the fight in Round 2.

Maia has a prayer grappling… But you have got to swim through laser guided bombs landing all over your head to take the guy down. Not easy. Silva will be doing nothing but practicing his take-down defense for this fight.

Maia is the only middleweight that is better than Anderson in any part of the game. If he can shorten the distance and take it to the ground, he has a chance.

Whoever is comparing this fight with Leites probably don’t know much about BJJ. Maia and Leites have very different styles, come from different schools. When Demian is on the ground he seeks for the submission the whole time, he has one of the most agressive groung game on the sport. Not to mention that Demian is 1000 times better than Leites (Demian is ADCC champion!).

This is gonna be a great and classic matchup, and I´m really pumped up! And for those who only care about brazy exchanges, there are always Kimbo’s videos on youtube.

my b man, i didn’t mean to specifically call you out as being retarded, i appreciate your post. I just wanted to make clear that Ando is MANY levels ahead of Maia in terms of striking and that there is no way in hell that he’ll be able to pick his punches and trade with the Spider.

Mia isnt the Number 1 contender Cael is but he is injured, so with him out there is just Nate and Maia, Nate just got dominated and Maia just come off a win so the best and possibly only choice is Maia. There is really only a handful of fighter that would actually give Anderson a challenged and to be honest there not in the Middleweight division.

Nice work despite the ungratefuls. Its not near as easy to write a well thought article as people think.
No matter what you write, there will be critics.
Someone will always disagree & others will see it your way.
Thanks for taking the time to do a write up.
Another good analysis would be a write up for Shogun vs Machida 2 coming up at UFC 113.

If Maia strikes at Anderson it will be to set up a takedown, but with Silva you have to connect to do that. Silva is just to agile and good at percieving whats coming. Leg kicks get you caught and hit in the face.
A telegraphed takedown gets a knee in the face.
If I were Maia, I would prepare to take a good shot and fall to the mat, playing hurt badly and hope Anderson follows me down and get a good posistion for a sub.
Hes going to have to play it smarter than Silva in some way, or hes in for a hard loss IMO.

I don’t know if maia is strong enough and willing to take the beating to break silva take down defense. You see how miller was able to stop his take downs. if it goes into the 4 or 5th round maia will get him down but what are the chances of him getting that far. Silva is a great boxer / striker and we all know MMA have terrible natural strikers they all are former grapplers and jui jitsui people…

Miller stopped maia world class jui jitsui for most of the fight. An miller cannot even be placed in the same room as silva. I like maia alot but he should have passed at least until he develop his stand up more